


and the lights keep flashing

by Hugabug



Series: bayaniserye drabble challenge [2]
Category: Heneral Luna (2015)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Coming of Age, Established Relationship, M/M, Physical Disability, circus AU, medj???, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:28:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7211642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hugabug/pseuds/Hugabug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if,<br/>What if we ran away?</p>
<p>What if,<br/>What if we left today?</p>
<p>What if,<br/><strike>We said goodbye to safe & sound?</strike> you were my safe & sound?</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the lights keep flashing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DurchVerse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DurchVerse/gifts).



> summary from Troye Sivan's "Youth"

The circus wasn’t supposed to be something permanent. Not for them, anyway. They were just two _probinsyano_  boys dreaming of the big Manila skyline at night with all its twinkling lights and sounds. One fated to be the heir to a large _hacienda_  with workers who secretly hated their boss and a boss who secretly killed his workers. The other fated to be the son of one of a hired hit man, the prince of a legacy of blood. Both were disgusted. Neither of them wanted it.

Miong wanted to be free. Pole wanted to fly.

Summer after summer they played, and rainy season after rainy season they huddled behind the tall grasses in the fields, giggling and smearing dirt on smiling cheeks and this went on and on, sweet days spent under the rays of the sun until one day, giggling and smearing and playing turned into something more when Miong pressed his thin lips up against Pole’s rosy red cheeks.

“Let’s leave.” Pole had been the first to suggest it, under a canopy of stars. “Let’s run away and never look back.”

Back then, Miong’s eyes had shone, almost as bright as any constellation in the sky, and Pole had thought, _my feet may be on the ground, but my heart soars high above the clouds whenever we’re together_.

“Wherever you go, I go.” Miong said.

So they went. And found solace amidst big billowing tents and flashing lights.

The tight rope/trapeze routine had been theirs and theirs alone and it was only apt. There was no one else Pole trusted more than Miong, and there was no one else Miong trusted more than Pole. With Pole on the tight rope for the first act, his calculating mind telling his body where to shift and where to lean in order to keep in control of his balance, Miong on the trapeze for the second, flipping and dancing in the air with his own special aerial ballet, and their hands clasped tightly together for the third, they were unstoppable.

That is… until one of them fell.

* * *

Lights.

That was the only thing he could think of, back when the twine beneath his chalked feet began to unravel and snap under the weight of his quivering body. He had looked to the sky, toward the large hollow of the tent roof, and the fairy lights that rained down on them all as below, just as an elephant let out a mournful wail.

“If you fall,” Ringmaster Antonio Luna told him once, looking at him in the eye with a stern gaze. “You will only have yourself to blame.”

He loved to fly so much, he never considered the idea of a fall.

But fall he had. And now, here he was, in the hospital tent out back, a cast wrapped around the lower half of his body and his hands clenched into fists.

“I’m sorry.” he says, when the tent flap finally closes and Miong sits by his bed, movement careful and cautious. “I’m so sorry.”

Miong raises an eyebrow, gingerly takes his hand. “For what?”

“Doc says,” Pole begins before he stops, looks down at their intertwined fingers. There’s a lump in his throat and a cold burning in his stomach. He can’t breath, but he forces his chest to expand as Miong squeezes his hand.

“Doc says I might never walk again.” he rasps, chuckling at how absurd he sounds, then sobbing at how pathetic he is. “She might– They might take me out of the circus. Leave me on the side of the road–”

“I won’t let them.” Miong cuts him off, shaking his head.

“But what choice do they have?” Pole argues, scrubbing at his eyes, trying to will away the tears. “I won’t have any use here anymore.”

“Then I’ll come with you.” Miong says, eyes shining again like that night long ago, when Pole thought he could see the sky in this boy’s smile. “We’ll run away again. Together.

The circus wasn’t supposed to be something permanent. It wasn’t home, it was only a place to find food and shelter until they’ve managed to get by on their own. The salary wasn’t much, but at least the boarding and the meals were free. And here, they could be as open as they want to be. But it wasn’t permanent.

Running away. That’s what they were good at. Running away. Together.

“But,” his throat closes up, seizes his words and makes it hard to speak. “I can’t even stand.”

He’ll never know what it feels like to have the wind in his hair ever again. He’ll never feel the adrenaline course through his veins. He’ll never taste control like he has up on that rope amidst the sparkling promise of those lights. He was trapped on the ground, like a plucked bird, and his heart broke with every gentle beckon of the sky.

But Miong… Miong was the sky.

“I can’t stand, Miong.” he says, laughing again, or sobbing, he isn’t sure. It hurts, this lump that wraps itself around his wind pipe, and he swallows, hard. “How are we– I can’t s-stand–”

Miong was _his_ sky.

And Pole would never know what he’d do without him.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr ver.](http://en-sam-malas.tumblr.com/post/145959787685/and-the-lights-keep-flashing)
> 
>  
> 
> prompt instructions [here](http://en-sam-malas.tumblr.com/post/145790223815/bayaniserye-drabble-challenge)!!
> 
> prompt me gais :)


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